Racks designed to be mounted on the outer surfaces of vehicles to aid in the carrying of luggage and other materials have proven popular with the vehicle owning public. This popularity appears to have increased with the purchase by the public of greater numbers of so-called "compact" and "subcompact" autos having greatly restricted storage space within the vehicle. However, such racks also commonly are used on vans, station wagons and other types of vehicles.
Because of the large scope of usage of such racks, it is desirable from a manufacturing standpoint to provide a rack having a design that permits rack mounting to vehicle outer panels having widely varying contours. Such designs are known and commonly include the provision of a universal joint or pivotal connection between the rack main body and the rack structure actually secured to the vehicle panel to provide firm and stable seating of the rack on variously curved surfaces. An example of such a design may be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 3,215,323, issued Nov. 2, 1965. To the best of our knowledge, however, prior art racks having universal mounting features have not provided for permanent, secure mounting to the vehicle, ease of mounting and simplicity of design and manufacture.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide a rack for use as a motor vehicle accessory that may be mounted on vehicle panels of varying contours and that allows simple and easy mounting in a permanent manner. Another object of this invention is to provide a rack that, despite its permanent mounting to the vehicle, provides weathertight seals and anti-corrosion features at the mounting location without resort to numerous parts such as gaskets or seals. A still further object of this invention is to provide a rack having a simple design that allows high quality of manufacture coupled with economical manufacturing procedures.